Commentators differ as to whether the apostle Peter authored II Peter, and to whether I Peter and II Peter have the same author. However, II Peter explicitly states that Peter was the author, and the different styles of the amensuenses (Sylvanus, the case of II Peter), may account for the other differences. II Peter is mainly concerned with the problem of Christians who deliberately sin, which may be an early form of Antinomianism. Peter sees the end of the world as coming with fire, which may have inspired some Gnostic works.

Hebrew did fall out of spoken use by the time the Jews were exiled into Babylon. However existing prayers and of course the Torah-Prophets-Writings itself was studied in the original Hebrew. And with the exception of Babylonian writings, Jewish scholars almost always wrote their works in Hebrew.

More recently (200 years ago) some prayers were translated and scholarly writings written in German, to appeal to those who were more assimilated into German society. Also at some point Yiddish (a combination of Hebrew and German) became a language of use among Jews in Europe. And at that time a major effort was made to revive Hebrew as an actual spoken language, with a couple of newspapers and study groups popping up in parts of Europe.

In the meantime, Middle Eastern Jews were speaking Arabic. My guess is there were a handful Middle Eastern Jews in Israel (or whatever it was called then) when the Turks were in power, so they were speaking Arabic (and praying and studying in Hebrew). When the European Jews returned to Israel - which started in the 1800's - they brought in the languages of their home countries (Russian & Polish much more than German), Yiddish, and a revived spoken Hebrew.

I don't think Latin was used by Jews very much at any given time - the Septuagint was a translation at the request (or command) of the authorities at that time.

We reviewed in detail the information about Peter that is contained in the New Testament. we also discussed the different views held by commentators as the the pseudepigraphic nature of I Peter and II Peter, and the discussion as to whether they were written by the same person. We completed our reading of I Peter, and ran through the quiz questions. We read a few verses from II Peter before adjourning until next week.

Our information about James is very sparse in the Gospels, but is augmented in Acts, the Pauline Epistles, and even in Josephus (if he is "James the Just")

In contrast, there are several stories about Peter in the Gospels, and in Acts, but they cease abruptly after his escape from a Herodian prison. He appears one more time after that.

Traditionally, I Peter has always been considered to have been written by the Peter of the gospels, but recently critics have queried the fact that the Greek is good, whereas all the disciples are described as "unlettered laymen" in Acts. The frequent references to persecution and to the "dispersion" are difficult to date if we accept Eusebius' account that Peter died at about the same time as Paul -- around 65 CE.

Peter does, however, acknowledge that Silvanus helped with the writing. Perhaps, if Silvanus produced a literate draft, Peter would be disinclined to tamper with it in detail.

We looked at the dates of the Domitian and Neronian persecutions, both of which are later that the presumed date of Peter's death. One usually overlooked possibility is the attack on Christians by Agrippa. This may well have led to a mass exodus from Judaea by Christians, and would allow for an early dating of I Peter, which might then even be the earliest Christian document.

The New Testament mentions four people named James ("Jacob" in the Greek):

1. James the son of Zebedee ("James the Great")

An early disciple of Jesus (Matthew 4:21), he was present at the Transfiguration and the Raising of Jairus' daughter. He and his brother were given the nickname "Boanerges", which translates as "Sons of Thunder". The meaning of this is obscure, but may denote a tendancy to violent action. . Jesus predicted the death of James (Mark 10:39), and this occured within a few years when the grandson of Herod the Great, Agrippa I, took control of the whole of Israel. Agrippa may have seen the Christians as a threat to his power; he had James executed, and then planned to execute Peter. If this James was the writer of the epistle, it must have been written before 42 CE, and thus be unrelated to Paul's letters on "Justification by Faith", such as Romans, which were written some ten years later.

 

2. James the Brother of Jesus ("James the Just"). James the Brother of Jesus was initially opposed to Jesus' ministry (Mark 3:31 ), but was converted and became head of the church in Jerusalem. Paul cites him as one of the first to receive a resurrection appearance ( I Corinthians 15:7). He is identified with the "James the brother of Christ" mentioned by Josephus as having been executed by the high priest, Ananus, during the interregnum after the unexpected death of the Roman governor, Festus in 61 CE. This move was apparently highly unpopular, and led to the deposition of Ananus. Eusebius quotes Hegessipus at length, recounting events from the trial of James (including the cryptic question "What is the Gate of Jesus?") and an account of James being thrown down the steps of the temple and then bludgeoned to death. "James the Just" had a reputation for extreme piety, his knees calloused by much prayer in the temple. At the arraignment of Paul before the Jerusalem church, on a charge of having taught Jews to reject the Law, it is James who decides the action to be taken.

3. James the Son of Alphaeus. Little is known about this James, He is usually identified with "James the Less" (Mark 15:40)

4. James of Judas. A translation problem inhibits our understanding as to whether this James was a brother or a father of Judas Iscariot.

 

A puzzle for any of these possible authors is the high standard of the Greek, not to be expected from a group of men whom the priests considered to functionally illiterate (Acts 4:13 ), though Katrhryn suggested that the letter was written in Aramaic and then translated by another.

To many commentators it seems odd that James, if he were the brother of Jesus, should never appeal to his brother for authority, or as an example. For that matter he does not quote any incident from the Jesus' ministry, though he may have been opposed to it at the time. Some Christian preachers have tried to show the Christian influence on James' writing, but others have shown that all references are Talmudic, and claim that the Epistle may be a Jewish document with two small Christian modifications. The ease with which the letter may be read in Jewish or Christian terms may show how close early Christian thinking was to Jewish thought.

The writer seems to assume a violent congregation, with adultery and murder common occurences.

 

 

 

 

 

Ehrmann asks, given the large number of versions of early Christianity, why did the one we know today become dominant?  He suggests three crucial factors -- the three C's.

 

This unified front involved (a) developing a rigor­ous administrative hierarchy that protected and conveyed the truth of the religion (eventuating, for example, in the papacy), (b) insisting that all true Christians profess a set body of doctrines pro­moted by these leaders (the Christian creeds), and (c) appealing to a set of authoritative books of Scripture as bearers of these inspired doctrinal truths (the "New" Testament; see Chapter 1). Or to put the matter in its simplest and most allitera­tive terms, the proto-orthodox won these conflicts by insisting on the validity of the clergy, the creed, and the canon.

 

We had another look at Hebrews 10-13.  Chapter 10 continued the complicated metaphor of Christ as priest, and again ascribed passages in the Old Testament as sayings of Jesus, reinforcing the suspicion that a collection of sayings was being used, rather than scripture itself.  Chapter 11 is known among English evangelicals as the “Westminster Abbey of the Bible”, with its great collection of vignettes of OT characters, rather like the Irish lists of saints.  The reference at the end to saints “sawn in two” is puzzling; there is a statement in the “Ascension of Moses” that Isaiah was so treated, but this apocryphal work is thought to be later than the epistle, if not medieval.

 

The imagery of the final chapters reaches great heights  -- as we have noted before, more like a speech or a sermon than a letter, though there are some personal references at the end.  Did someone send out a transcript of a sermon, and add a few greetings?